Love and Life in Seven Snapshots
by genies
Summary: Yuuri and Victor in seven drabbles. / Written for Caesar's Palace's Shipping Week.
1. Soulmates

**For the first day of Caesar's Palace's Shipping Week. Prompt: soulmate.**

 **WC: 227**

Victor didn't believe in soulmates. Love was about push and pull, give and take, not fitting together perfectly and calling it a day. In his experience, at least.

"What do you want me to be to you?" he'd asked. I'll change for you, he seemed to say. We can make it work. "A father figure? A brother, then? A friend?" If you want me to be strong, I'll be strong. If you want me to hold you, I'll hold you. Just stay by me, too, when I ask.

Yuuri didn't believe in soulmates. Love was just about being, not trying to fit together perfectly before the day ended. In his experience, at least. The stars didn't change the moon, and the moon didn't try to outshine the stars. They simply were.

Victor was determined to prove him wrong, it seemed. "What do you want me to be to you?" he'd asked, as if anything unauthentically him would be enough for Yuuri. As if anything authentically him wouldn't be enough for Yuuri. "I'd be anything you asked me to be," he seemed to say with those puppy eyes and that compliant touch, "even if it made you wrong and me right."

"I want you to stay who you are, Victor," he responded.

And in response, the waves lapped the shore quietly, moon pushing and pulling the unchanging sea.


	2. Safe

**Day 2. Prompt: Safe.**

 **WC: 244**

"Okay," Victor muttered. "Great." Thieving was tricky business, especially if you were trying to steal from your fiance.

What was he doing lying down in front of a safe, wearing gloves that hadn't seen the light of day since his childhood, and watching YouTube videos on how to pick locks? Trying to steal a wedding ring, of course. Duh.

The minor detail was that it was his wedding ring, and he just wanted to LOOK at it, and why didn't his fiance understand that? And anyway, it wasn't like he was stealing if the ring was already his.

Their proposal had been a bit unconventional, but since they didn't have that element of surprise surrounding their marriage, Yuuri had forbidden him from looking at the rings until the day of. You think that's unbelievable? Victor would agree.

He heard some rattling from the kitchen, probably Makkachin begging for food again, but nevertheless, he persisted. Tongue peeking out between his lips in frustration, he tried again to jiggle the lock again with more vigor. It wasn't like Yuuri was the boss of him.

"And what do you think you're doing, mister?"

Victor jumped, hiding his lockpick behind his back. "What are YOU doing here?"

"This is my bedroom too," said the man standing in the doorway, arms crossed but slightly amused. "Stop snooping in my side of the closet."

Victor sighed. "I can't believe you bought a safe."

"Let's just say I know you well."


	3. Scandal

**Day 3. Prompt: Scandal.**

 **WC: 222**

"Katsuki Yuuri!" a reporter all but screeched. "Any comments on your performance? Both performances? Perhaps the literal kiss and cry?"

Yuuri felt his life slipping away from him at accelerating speed. He had thought it was sweet at the time, Victor half apologizing, half declaring his undying love for him on the ice through the medium of a tackling kiss. But now dealing with the aftermath, he just wanted to curl into a ball under his covers and go to sleep.

Both performances, his ass. Their relationship wasn't for show, and this reporter had the audacity to hint at something unsavory at a press conference. Yuuri suddenly found himself drawing strength in annoyance, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists.

"What aspect of them do you want to talk about?" he said coolly.

"I thought it'd be a good idea to address the elephant in the room," the reporter said, ever persistent.

"Oh, you mean the fact that Yuuri kicked all of our asses?"

Yuuri turned to look at the man next to him, Phichit, and gave him a small smile. Phichit's smile back was cheerful but Yuuri could see a dangerous stony interior underneath. Yuuri reached under the table and squeezed his friend's hand in thanks for changing the subject. His theme for that season was in dedication to Phichit, too.


	4. Summer

**Day 4. Prompt: Summer**

 **WC: 192**

"Hey." Victor rolled over in bed. "Hey!"

"Huh, what?" Yuuri shook himself awake and turned to look at the clock. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Victor said, "just, quick question: what are we doing during the off-season?"

Yuuri sighed. Another 1 AM thought that just had to be shared.

"I thought you were the coach," Yuuri said blearily, then continued when Victor just stared expectantly at him. "Train, I guess. Together?"

"I was hoping you'd say take a trip to Saint Petersburg."

"You haven't exercised in, like, a year. I thought you were coming out of retirement."

"Yes, but this is important." Victor switched on the light and grabbed Yuuri's glasses from the nightstand and handed them to him. "I need you to look at me. I want you to visit my family."

Yuuri could see the anxiety in his eyes, underneath the casual exterior. The fear of rejection, fear of the unknown. The look of a vulnerable man. Yuuri took a breath.

"I mean, I thought that was a given. Night." Yuuri gave his glasses to Victor without having put them on and rolled back over, leaving Victor smiling in the dark.


	5. Sketch

**Day 5. Prompt: Sketch.**

 **WC: 165**

Yuuri skated lazily on the ice, doing simple figures as his mind wandered. The rink was empty, and he found himself back in the skates of his teenager self: the unsure amateur who had struggled with whether or not to continue to skate, who had wavered in his dream to compete on the same ice as Victor Nikiforov. What would happen after high school? Where was his career on the international stage? That Yuuri had always come here when he had something to think about. Time would be lost as he sketched patterns in the ice, as he stroked around the rink, the air biting his chapped lips.

Yuuri smiled, the man who was only a little more confident, but who felt a lot more loved. Now, he would not only compete against, but he thought he maybe had a chance to win against his former idol, turned best friend. Somehow, fifteen-year-old Yuuri had been right in continuing chasing after a one in a million.


	6. Sunrise

**Day 6. Prompt: Sunrise.**

 **WC: 106**

If the last Grand Prix Final had been a sunset, with Vicchan dying and Yuuri crashing, this Grand Prix Final was a sunrise. The warmth Yuuri had felt while skating his free skate for the final time on the Grand Prix circuit was gentle, promising, hopeful.

Yuuri looked straight at Victor, tears of both frustration and joy glistening in his eyes but his gaze unflinching. How could he retire when there was so much more he could give, so much he could share?

Victor gave him a soft smile, and as they embraced on the rink floor, Yuuri thought of what midday would bring.


	7. Smile

Victor's smile was never the same each time, and Yuuri sometimes wondered how many he had left to discover.

 **Day 7. Prompt: Smile. Thanks for the prompt, Misty!**

 **WC: 100**

He collected them like cards, stowing them away for remembering when he was lonely, or confused, or self-doubting. The smile that Victor gave Yuuri, firm and faithful, before he competed was so different from the smile that Victor gave Yuuri over a bowl of his mother's katsudon.

Yuuri took Victor's hands, his own knees shaking. Both of their hands trembled.

"From this day until death separates us," Victor finished quietly, and his smile was more blinding than it had ever been.


End file.
